In the studio with LEBO

“When you distill things from their essence, you can always build up from there.”
-LEBO

There’s a stark simplicity in David “LEBO” Le Batard’s studio. It’s a compact space with white walls and white floors in a residential high-rise. A windowed wall opens to a balcony overlooking the busy Miami streets.

Outside of a simple well-worn chair, the only other furnishings in the space are a white table, a few builders’ saw horses and a rolling cart with paints in paper cups and a tray filled with the tools he needs to create.

Along the walls is artwork in various stages of completion. There’s a stack of aged newsprint comics, comic books and half-used coloring books – elements of which may be fortunate enough to land in a piece of artwork that makes a LEBO identifiably a LEBO.

“Collaging is a way to interact with the past and reintroduce it, and relive it in my own way. That begins the dialogue that becomes that painting,” he says. “A lot of the things I collage with are old coloring books from the 50s or old comic books, things that I think are charged with a certain energy but also are suspended in time.”

He says he considers painting to be the purest form of what he can do creatively, but that ultimately he still considers himself a cartoonist. “I was always drawn to that form. It’s very immediate.

Having met David on the recent VIP Alaska cruise, it was revealing to get a glimpse into his perspective on art through the items on display on the ship. It is clear he has roots as a cartoonist, which brings a kind of light, jovial flavor to his art. At the same time, however, there can be very deep and subtle messages in his imagery. There is a uniqueness here that makes a ‘LEBO’ instantly identifiable. I have the pleasure of now owning a few of his pieces, which will always make me smile.